


On the Rails

by leonidaslion



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-08
Updated: 2011-09-08
Packaged: 2017-10-23 13:01:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/250566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leonidaslion/pseuds/leonidaslion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Life rushes along like a runaway train, and lately Erik feels as though he does nothing but add to the blur.</p>
            </blockquote>





	On the Rails

Life rushes along like a runaway train, and lately Erik feels as though he does nothing but add to the blur. His powers seem to grip the metal container rattling wildly along the tracks and hurl it forth in a spray of sparks and ozone. Faster and faster it races, until he can’t hear anything over the squealing of the useless brakes that Charles keeps trying to apply. The fool. The bleeding hearted, damn fool.

He’s going to be run down if he doesn’t learn to stay out of Erik’s path.

Cities spin by before Erik blinks. Mutants passed up or over or collected in Charles’ net. They make little difference to Erik, seen in a flash and then vanished from sight and mind like the lights of a station careering past in the dead of night.

At times, he wonders if this train has ever been still. He wonders if it will stop even after it reaches the end of its tracks, even after Shaw ( _Muttermörder, der Teufel_ ) is finished, or if it will burst forth into soil and rock, spewing torn soil up in a heavy rain and plowing furrows in the earth. The prospect is somehow both glorious ( _the train is a thing of beauty, all grey iron and steel_ ) and terrifying.

In such a metal, bellowing beast, how can anything of the man Erik once was survive? How can there be anything but heat and smoke and iron?

Still, faster and faster he flies. Momentous events play out in a heartbeat, and he thunders from D.C. to Russia and back to D.C. Charles is at his elbow every step, just as he has been for weeks, with his naïve philosophy and his innocent eyes and his bumbling, foolish optimism. His mere presence heaps more coal into the engine, until the train bellows flame and smoke. Until the tracks rattle apart beneath the metal wheels, and liquefy in their wake.

In Westchester, New York, Erik blinks again and Charles’ mouth is beneath his.

This is not what he meant to happen. This is not what he wanted. He has no room for passengers here: it’s not safe, they will burn. Charles will burn. He will drown beneath the heat and molten metal.

“Stop me,” someone is saying, over and over again in a fervent, hoarse voice, and Erik’s head spins when he recognizes that it’s him, that’s his voice. His hands grow rougher as Charles continues silent. He tears Charles’ prim, neat clothes from him and pushes him back against the wall. He covers him, he lifts him up by the thighs and there is a thunder in his head, in his heart. The train is still moving, driving him on, driving him in before he can convince himself it isn’t at all wise.

Charles cries out—Erik is too rough, too quick—but he doesn’t say the word Erik both craves and dreads. Instead, his hands clench on Erik’s shoulders, gripping him tightly. His hips move best as they can, pinned between Erik’s body and the wall.

“Stop me,” Erik growls one last time, desperate. “Stop me, damn you.”

Inside, there is nothing but the clatter of the disintegrating rail and the monstrous roar of fifty thousand tons of metal bearing down on him. The tracks will not hold together at this rate, they won’t carry him where he needs to go, where he races to take himself. Too fast. He’s moving too fast, and this is too much. Overload. Automatic shutdown imminent. Or perhaps, instead, an explosion.

He releases Charles’ thighs, forcing Charles to hold himself up, and grips his throat instead. Find and neutralize the threat. Choke back on the throttle.

“E-Erik!” Charles splutters, and Erik shudders as that voice washes over him, throwing up a great fog bank of steam as the fires in the belly of the train’s engine go out.

The brakes engage, lock, and Erik squeezes his eyes shut against the disorienting sensation of skidding to a stop. His muscles quake with reaction, but Charles won’t allow him to disengage.

“No,” Charles says firmly—too late, far too late for that word from him. He holds tightly to Erik, gripping the back of his head and one shoulder and hugging him close as though there aren’t bruises forming around his neck even now. Around his thighs and everywhere else Erik touched him.

“Gottverdammt,” Erik whispers fervently as the train’s engine ticks down to cool inside of him. “ _Gottverdammt!_ ”

“Be calm, my friend,” Charles says, stroking his hair. “Be at peace.”

Erik bitterly wishes he could tell Charles that he is, that that’s the bloody problem… but of course Charles already knows. Just as he knows this train cannot be held back forever. It cannot be decommissioned; the tracks cannot be dismantled. They are bound to the earth with iron clamps, heavy and deep.

“Leave tomorrow for tomorrow,” Charles urges. “Be with me tonight. Erik. Erik, be here with me.”

Erik shudders once, struggling against the horrible sensation of inertia that yawns where the dizzying blur of movement once carried him on, and then sags. He rests his head on Charles’ shoulder, allowing himself to be held.

But even as Charles leads him off to bed, Erik can hear the far off whistle of an approaching train. The engine in his head cycles up again as he has Charles again, more gently this time. By the time the spread of morning light falls across Charles’ lax, satisfied face, the fires are stoked and hot.

Erik rises—restless with the renewed need to move, to hunt down the dark tracks before him—and lets himself out.

He has a train to catch.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is all Yo's fault. We were chatting about how fast-paced the movie is, and, well... Then my muse went on a 45 minute detour. :)


End file.
